It’s no secret that guitar players generally don’t learn to read music.  But that’s the beauty of the guitar --- almost anyone can learn a few chords, a couple of strums and a handful of tunes, and tap into the wonderful world of playing music!  

 

    The thing is, many aspiring players reach a point where they want to have a better understanding of how chords and scales all work together to create the music they’re actually playing, and reading music has nothing to do with that!  You don’t have to read music to learn about harmonic structure, which enables players to create their own music, know what notes to use when improvising over a particular chord progression, or even be able to figure out songs from recordings.

 

     Now don’t get me wrong --- reading music is a groovy thing, and I do it all the time for the music theatre gigs I do.  But unless you’re a professional player or someone who only wants to pursue classical guitar or jazz, you don’t have to go there!  It’s a separate discipline that requires time and patience, and has no direct bearing on learning to play more accessible styles of music like rock and country.  But understanding what a key is, and knowing things like why and how certain chords work well together is huge!!  

 

     As a teacher, I always teach new students a few chords and a basic “full-chord” strum (FINGERPICKING PLUS) so that within a few lessons they’re actually playing through simple songs.  This gets the fingers of the left hand moving and also teaches rhythm.  From there, I introduce more chords and a couple more common and functional strums, establishing a foundation for anything that comes after that.  

 

     With more advanced students, and for students who may be in a musical rut, I always include some theory so I can work at getting the brain caught up to the fingers.  That’s often where the problem lies when players want to grow but don’t know where to start.  It just makes sense that if you’ve only learned to play by memorizing where to put your fingers, creating music and improvising will be limited.

    

     So if you’ve come to the realization that some theoretical knowledge is just what the doctor ordered, give yourself an intellectual boost by checking out The TONALITY REFERENCE GUIDE to get a handle on what you might have thought was something too difficult to grasp, ‘cause It just ain’t so!